Hungry Hill: A Memoir

Chapter 45 - Bargain Tables

220 H u n g ry H i l l 45. Bargain Tables Studying the Curri er & Ives calendar on the kitchen wall, I notice howAsh Wednesday was March 7th, the day before Tommy’s birthday, and Easter this year was April 22nd, the day before Gerry’s birthday—odd how they overlapped—and there are only two weeks left until the Junior Prom. While I have asked Kevin to my prom, he has not asked me to the Senior Prom, so after school today I hung out at Big Ben’s secretly hoping he might be there. No one was there so I hit every department store in Springfield—Peerless, Forbes, Casual Corner—and found my prom dress on the second floor at Steiger’s, in exactly the same department where I bought my eighth-grade graduation dress, my lucky department. The dress is blue, the color of clouds, with a lace fabric covering the long-sleeved top and a shiny blue umbrella skirt. A tiny blue satin ribbon runs along the neckline with a matching blue satin ribbon at the waist. I love the lace and thin satin ribbon and withdraw the twenty-one dollars from my savings account to pay for it. With my first paycheck from Forbes, I’ll buy the shoes. For my first day at Forbes, Mr. Howard, my new boss, a white-haired man with a pin-dot scattering of dandruff on his dark suit coat, explains everything to me about my job in ten minutes, then assigns me to the bargain sales tables scrunched between the escalators. The time at work crawls as slowly as if I were enduring one of Father Thrasher’s monotonous chemistry lectures. At five forty-five, when the store’s closing bell chimes, I weigh my expenses. Bus fare, thirty-five cents. Employee cafeteria—I could bring my food. While Di makes a dollar thirty-five an hour at A&P, she does work fewer hours and says there are never any openings. Besides Di, I don’t know anyone else who has a job yet. Forbes and Wallace will be OK. I can’t think of any other part-time job, and it is eighteen hours where I’m safe from Mary. Disappearing at work for me on Monday and Thursday nights and all day Saturday will be a blessed escape. That night in the car, Kevin fakes disappointment that I hadn’t bought him a bargain-table sweater. The last few Saturdays when the four of us went out, we tried to act as if everything was the same, but everything was A Memoir 221 different, for me, anyway. In line at the movies, when Jean asks me about my new prom dress, Kevin’s eyes glaze over when I mention the lace top. But as he was leaving the back steps after our ritual kiss, he averts his eyes and asks me to the Senior Prom. My hand on the doorknob, I feel like a sad afterthought, an also-ran. In front of the medicine chest mirror, I stare at the dots of Clearasil I have just caked on my spray of pimples and wonder whether Barry had made Kevin ask me? Continue the foursome? How could Kevin break up with someone whose father had just died? Am I just someone to feel sorry for? I brush my teeth hard trying to make my gums bleed when I hear a car screeching to a stop in front of the house, followed by the sound of doors slamming. Fearing Mary might wake up, I tiptoe into the kitchen where I see Danny standing on the back porch with his best friend, Dan Kelly, the blonde Dan, right behind him. “Those girls were all over us,” Dan Kelly brags with a half-laugh. “Were they even in high school? How old were they anyway?” My brother is fumbling with the doorknob when I open the door. “Old enough to drive,” I answer crisply. “Come in, be quiet, you two, before Mary hears you.” “Oh, she’s on her sleeping pills. She’s out for the count.” The two Dans chuckle softly, covering their mouths. The way they put their hands over their mouths alerts me: Do I smell anything? “Were you two drinking? Danny, what would happen if you got caught?” I ask, frantic. My brother says nothing, but lets Danny Kelly do the talking for them. “Carole, I am offended that you would think that of us, with...